Who Were the “Hillbillies” That Built Modern Industrial Ohio?

In the earliest decades of the 20th Century, more than 28 million men and women—black and white—began “The Great Migration” from the Deep South and Appalachia lured by higher wages and the chance to make a better life for themselves and their families.

Of these millions, hundreds of thousands of “hillbillies” came to work in the rubber factories of Ohio forever changing its culture, history, and politics. Who were they? Astonishingly enough, historians have had little idea. They tell us that no memoirs, no photographs, no letters home exist during this defining period of northeast Ohio’s history.

That is no longer the case.

The winner of awards of excellence in publishing from both the Kentucky Historical Society and the Ohio Local History Alliance, On A Burning Deck finally tells their story.

Based on dozens of hours of previously unpublished oral histories and a wealth of rare photos, On A Burning Deck is available in a one-volume hardback, two-volume paperback set or Kindle format. In whatever format you choose, On A Burning Deck offers the only complete portrait available of one family’s origins in rural Kentucky, migration to Akron, Ohio, in 1917, and work in the rubber factories.

Following their arrival in Akron, their story continues as the head of the family struggles through recession, Depression and strike to eventually take his place in local government. There, he establishes a modern police department and shepherds his community’s growth in the boom years following World War II.

After 100 years, the hillbillies who built modern industrial Ohio, forever changing its culture, history, and politics, now have a voice.

And that, perhaps, is the best hillbilly elegy of all.

c. 1917

Haskell Jones

His mother a former teacher, his father a Magistrate and his grandfather a jailer and acting chief-of-police, Haskell grew up in dirt-poor poverty knowing about everyone and everything of any importance that was going on in the county. When his father died, leaving him the head of his family of eight, he made the decision to travel north to work in the rubber factories of Akron, Ohio.

In time, he, too, would become a chief of police, city councilman and run for mayor. In doing so, he would effect permanent changes to his community that are still being enjoyed by its residents today. Blessed with a phenomenal memory and a sharp attention to detail, he had hundreds of stories to tell.

c. 1919

Florence (Jones) Jones

A teacher in a one-room schoolhouse, Florence met Haskell while teaching his younger brothers and sisters. After courting each other through the mail, she would eventually marry Haskell and join him in Akron while he worked to support the family. Once the recession of 1921 hit, however, it was Florence’s teaching skills that would provide the income for them all to survive. And, once the Depression hit, it would be her abilities in the home and garden that would once again aid her struggling family.

c. 1914

E. A Jones

Haskell Jones’ father was a former school trustee, magistrate and candidate for county judge. Because of his near constant involvement in area politics and recent success in uncovering corruption within the local sheriff’s office, he was a local politician who left an overwhelmingly positive image behind in the public’s mind upon his passing. On the other hand, his wife, Willie Jones, was left a widow with eight children and precious little else. Eight months after his death the family farm would be sold for $10—the exact same amount of money that his burial plot had cost.

c. 1890

Willie (James) Jones

A former schoolteacher, Haskell’s mother met and married E. A Jones when he served as a school trustee for Graves County, Kentucky. Raising their family of eight in a 2-room house, she worked to provide for all—canning, cooking, sewing and scrimping under the harshest conditions imaginable. Upon her husband’s death and the loss of the family farm, she would pack up all of her children still remaining at home and follow Haskell and Florence to Akron.

c. 1880

Sarah Ellen (Wright) Jones

Given a slave as a wedding present in 1860 by her in-laws and married to a man who could afford to buy himself out of military service during the Civil War, Haskell’s grandmother, Sarah Ellen Jones, quickly produced 6 children to help run the family farm. A little more than 10 years later, however, with slavery over and her husband dead, she was left alone to provide for the family. She would outlive all of her children except one.

c. 1880

Simeon Augustus Carman

A Confederate veteran of the Civil War, Florence’s grandfather Simeon was wounded, captured and held as a Union prisoner-of-war at Rock Island, Illinois. Refusing to wear blue for the rest of his life (or have a Union mini-ball removed from his hip), he also saved Florence’s life when her dress caught on fire.

Reviews

  • ” . . . must reading for anyone who is interested in the social history of the Great Migration . . .”

    Richard Troutman
    Head Emeritus, History Department Western Kentucky University
  • “By the conclusion . . . a person will embrace the Jones as if they were kin . . . the history of rubber in Akron is all the richer and more complete for it.”

    Steve Love
    Co-author, Wheels of Fortune: The Story of Rubber in Akron
  • ” . . . Jones has done us a great service in publishing the transcripts of interviews he made with them in the 1980s and in contextualizing them in beautifully clear prose . . . ”

    John Tully
    Author of The Devil’s Milk: A Social History of Rubber and Silvertown: The Lost Story of a Strike.
  • ” . . . Jones puts their words in a rich context due to his extensive research in other sources and the literature. This is good history, but also a compelling story, well told.”

    William H. Mulligan, Jr., PhD

    Professor of History, Murray State University
President, Jackson Purchase Historical Society 

  • ” . . . a must read for the many of us that dream of the return of American manufacturing. Furthermore it is a very enjoyable read, which most history books lack. At the university level it should be required reading for students of business and history.”

    Quentin R. Skrabec, PhD
    Professor of Manufacturing and Operations Management  University of Findlay Author, Rubber An American Industrial History

  • ” . . . With this oral history, Tom Jones . . . shows what it was like inside the walls–from workers settling disputes with violence, to what went on in the days when worker health and safety wasn’t even a consideration.”

    Bruce Meyer
    Editor, Rubber & Plastics News Author, "The Once and Future Union:  The Rise and Fall of the United Rubber Workers"
  • “…verbal folk art…”

    Steve Love
    Co-author, Wheels of Fortune: The Story of Rubber in Akron
  • “Outstanding Achievement Award”

    Ohio Local History Alliance, 2018
  • “2018 Kentucky History Awards Winner”

    Kentucky Historical Society

Like On A Burning Deck on Facebook and receive publication updates.